Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-11-20

6anked on two sides by great tank anu
an earthwork twelve feet in height.
It was attacked on two points by the
Eleventh Bengal Infantry, under Drury
and Stuart. The latter went calamity
storming over the stocksdes, but the first
named officer, Lieutenant Ashton Drury,
fine young subsltern of the South
Wales Borderers (sttsched to the Bengal
corpse, fell dead-the first officer killed
in the new campaign-while Lieutenant
Sellery of the Inniskilleys, similarly st
teched, was wounded along with several
Sepoys.
Lonsdsle, whom the BengsIees lowed
closely, for, discipline apart, he had the
air of q man born to command, had &
narrow escape in this wretched jungle
warfare, SIS q wounded Burmese, in his
death agony, half raising himself from
the blood-slippery grass, with his sharp
dao, or chopper, made savage stab at
him. A Bengalee parried the thrust with
his rife, and then blew out the creatures
brains.
Charlie Danvers also had an escape.
Blinded by the smoke OF some blazing
bamboo houses, he lost mis- way, and fell
among SOM Burmese skirmlshers, bat
was too much of an Englishman not to be
equal 10 the occasion. He cut down two,
emptied his revolver among the rest, but
stumbled and fell, when heap Of others
were piled over him, killed and wounded,
whose blood plastered him from head to
foot, to his great disgust. Between gore
and CRIME he presented terrible appear
ance, and emerged from under them with
a very wry face, for Charlie was natty
and vain young fellow-vsin of the white
ness of his hands, his straw-colored
moustache and somewhat vspid counte-
nance.
The attack had lasted three quarters of
sn hour, during which the shot from rifed
brass guns of the Burmese rang incess-
antly through the dense leafy jungle,
shredding away the foliage into fakes,
till our stormers swept over the place.
and the village, with oil its painted
pagodas, was given to the flames; ano
amid sheet Of these the bamboo houses
burned aercely, the roar Of the confagra-
ton almost drowning the aendish yells of
the Burmese.
Forward" was now the order, and
the troops, full OF fervor, pressing over
some open ground beyond advanced
against the Fort of Minhla, into which
the Kathleen from the river was throwing
her shells with beautiful precision.
The works were girt by thick jungle,
and full of armed Burmese, over whose
fantastic hemlets eleven guns and two
wall pieces, from the higher ramparts,
were pouring grape, despite which
small party, led by Lleutenants Downes
of he Eleventh, Wilkinson of the Twelfth,
and other officers, including Montressor,
armed with his sword and brace of re-
volVers, as he was always terribly in
earnest about anything he undertook to
do, reached the foot Of the slope, which
was covered by one very formidable piece
of cannon. "Waiting until the gun at the
head CT the rampant had discharged its
periodical round of grape" wrote one
who was present, "these officers
led their men to most gallant
and successful assault. They met with
q sharp resistance at the top of the in
cline, and poor Wilkinson had his skull
cut through with dao, or heavy kpife-a
very dangerous wound. His conduct,
and that of Downes, who was conspic-
uously to the front, deserves recognition.
The Burmese were quickly cut up in q
terrible degree-as they were msssed to-
gether both on the rampant and in the
courtyard below-by the fire of our
breech-loaders, and as they rushed out to
the river bank on the east they were met
by party under Stuart, and suffered
severely; in fact, very few escaped alive.
1 suppose a hundred were killed outright
here, number wounded, and $50, or 200,
made prisoners.n
The Burmese commander here was a
ruff n who had been odiously Jealous in
the awful palace massacres; and his
troops were the Kings marines, whose
helmets were surmounted by gilt anchors,
in lieu OF the ordinary red mouthed drag
on of the line.
The Italians in Theebaw's service now
exploded mine from the other side OF
the river, by which the armed launch
Kathleen had narrow escspe; but after
q three hours conflict, Minhla was ours.
The whole town, including the Govern
or's palaces, persisted in conf4gration
caused by the shells from the launch.
When the firing ceased, and the dead
and wounded were being reckoned and
lists made up for the general, Montressor
and Lonsdale, on meeting each other,
shook hands in congratulatioD that they
had both escaped untouched; but q sad
der sequel WAS in store for both ere long,
when under fire again.
CHAPTER xxXvIII-HoME.
And now for 6 brief glance at what was
then passing at Rose Cottage and Ravens
bourne Hall.
The days were drawing in, and the
sombre gloamings came early. Many of
the former were dull and sullen, with
sIeety showers; and the wind howled at
night through the lofty and leafess trees
that over hung the cottage.
The swine were roofing in the desolate
corrfields among the black, or brown,
decaying stubble, and the noisy ducks
came, dirty and dreggled, from the
muddy pools, thai were half choked with
fallen leaves.
It was toward the end OF q genuine En-
glish November, when the rain raineth
every day, and frowsy fogs, like those of
Holland, envelop all the low-lying and
i'll drained land.
The Thames was shorn of its sylvan
beauty, and the TRUSTING place, on which
the memory Of Lonsdale, then so far
away amid the rice swamps of the Ran
COON river, dwelt so fondly, was no longer
q place of rich grass, sweet flowers and
sunshine, bGt one instinct with the
deathly odor of rotting sedge and Shiny
waterfsgs; so Melanie Talbot went near
it no more; it seemed so gloomy and
deserted, 80 indicative of present anxiety
and future hopelessness; and If here and
there flower fingered in the once pretty
garden of the cottage, it seemed to stand,
as someone says, above its dead compan-
ions like mourner over O grave, waiting
Tor Mother Earth to receive it also.